


NOODLE SHOP

by MajorEnglishEsquire



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Food, Fortune Cookies, Fortune Telling, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-09
Updated: 2016-07-09
Packaged: 2018-07-22 13:08:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7440460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MajorEnglishEsquire/pseuds/MajorEnglishEsquire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><a href="http://outpastthemoat.tumblr.com/">outpastthemoat</a> @ <a href="http://fortuneaday.tumblr.com/">fortuneaday</a>: I would like a fortune for an au where chuck and sam are old friends who are secretly in love with each other & meet up for Chinese takeout every thursday night and months later chuck finds sam's fortune a day blog and uses it to ask him out</p>
            </blockquote>





	NOODLE SHOP

**Author's Note:**

  * For [outpastthemoat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/outpastthemoat/gifts).



> All fortunes were randomly generated for the story (believe it or not). Original posting [here](http://apocalypse-patisserie.tumblr.com/post/146971691918/outpastthemoat-left-this-on-my-fortune-cookie).

Thursday night Chinese is a celebration of the next day being Friday. It’s too soon to relax and stay out late, but it’s pretty much the perfect time to hang out with a friend and decompress before end-of-the-week tests and handing papers you’re sure you fucked up on by waiting until the last minute.

At least, it was, when Chuck was at the tail end of college and while Sam was still going for a few years after.

Their friendship was a simple formula: Sam wasn’t old enough to buy beer, but he had a car. Chuck was old enough to buy beer, but he didn’t have a car.

One night, Sam was starving and only had money enough for food. So they went to this great Chinese place and... they just never stopped going.

During exams, they might even double it up to Tuesday and Thursday. When that happened, sometimes an extra pot of hot tea would arrive, on the house. Pretty much only when the younger woman was behind the counter, though.

Sam always saved the fortunes from the fortune cookies for Chuck. He does that tonight. “Do you still have that drawer full of fortunes and socks?” he laughs a little.

“Listen, I don’t know why they ended up in the sock drawer, but they float around in there and sometimes I’ll get a fortune between my toes and it’ll kinda make my day better,” Chuck gripes.

Sam lifts his tiny cup of tea. “What are we drinking to?”

“Isn’t your big-boy job interview on Monday? Let’s drink to your job interview.”

Sam taps cups with Chuck, downs his too-hot, and winces. “I’m nervous. Like every time I think about it my heart rate just skyrockets.”

“I know. It’ll always be like that, sorry to say. But let’s find out how you’re gonna do on it,” he drags one of the plastic-wrapped fortune cookies from beside Sam’s elbow, across the table.

“That was unbelievably unhelpful,” Chuck scoffs. He turns it so Sam can read it.

“You learned how to say ‘love’, though.”

Chuck practices the word a few times and frowns. “Open yours.” He folds his own into a tiny square and shoves it in his pocket.

Sam’s cookie.... doesn’t have a fortune in it. “Oh my god. This is like a serious omen! What the fuck does it mean when mine doesn’t have one at all??”

He’s just freaked out enough by the impending interview that Chuck reaches over the back of the booth to the empty table behind them and pulls the two fortunes a couple other patrons left.

“Here here here,” he pulls the crunched wrapper out of Sam’s hand and unfolds his palm to place one of the fortunes there. “I didn’t look at what they said. It’s close enough to having a cookie. What does it say?”

“Our deeds determine us as much as we determine our deeds,” Sam reads. “Oh my god this is way worse. What the fuck does this mean.”

Chuck finally laughs at him. “Calm down. It’s talking about self-fulfilling prophecies. See, if you determine what you will do tomorrow, tomorrow will also determine what you do. The same goes for Monday. Think good thoughts about Monday and you’ll do well on Monday and Monday will be good to you. You’ll get the job.”

Sam flattens his out between his fingers a few times. Thinks about it while he has more tea.

“Do you want this back?” Chuck even likes to keep the dumb ones and the repeats.

He accepts this one, too.

“Seriously, what do you do with them?” Sam presses just once more.

Chuck shakes his head and finally looks at the other one he hijacked from the table. “Um.” He folds it and puts it in his pocket with Sam’s and the first one. Clears his throat. “I don’t know. I just like having them. You wanna polish off the pot?”

“You should have it, I hogged it all.”

“Sam. You’re gonna do okay on your interview, you know that, right? And if not. There’s always gonna be another one.” He throws the cracked-open halves of his cookie at Sam and he catches them. “You’re a smart cookie.”

Sam snorts. “Thanks.”

«»

He doesn’t feel good after the interview. He doesn’t feel good about it at all. He felt like he sweat through his clothes and floundered like a fucking fish and sounded like a total tool trying to answer questions with a panel of four professionals staring him down.

He does so badly, he expects to trip on the parking garage stairs and get mugged and experience a sudden downpour on his way home. None of which happens.

Really, he tried to give his best to the day. Tried his best on the interview. He wants something good out of it but.... he’s just not optimistic.

He tries to remember the exact words of the fortune he’d handed over to Chuck at the restaurant. He even Googles “fortune cookie wisdom self-fulfilling prophecy” trying to find it. He gets some interesting hits. A couple links down is a fortune cookie blog. And the first post up at the top is his fortune.

Sam scrolls down, sees more fortunes, sees some commentary. Some of the fortunes are weirdly familiar. He could swear him and Chuck had gotten some of these before. Laughed their heads off about them, too.

He zips back up to the top of the blog and contemplates the phrase for a moment. Before noticing the datestamp on the post.

It’s today. Weird coincidence.

Under it, the blogrunner wrote:

> All the good luck in the world, my friend.  
> I know you are fantastic.  
> I know you’ll do well.  
> I know you’re going places.

And under it, unlike with any other post, there’s another fortune, in awful English, but with crease lines exactly like how Chuck folded the papers into a little square to keep them in his pocket:

The post closes:

> Wish I could go those places with you.

There are notes on the post, comments and ‘likes.’ There’s no place to comment if you don’t have an account. He might have to make one.

He desperately needs to ask.

Not that he doesn’t already know.

Fuck it.

He dials Chuck on his cell. But it’s not Thursday. Chuck isn’t expecting the call and he doesn’t pick up. Sam’s too impatient for a message and texting simply won’t do.

Shit.

There’s a way to message anonymously. Other people have done it to ask for a random fortune to be given to them.

But what does he even say?

He clicks around on the blog and goes back to the home screen. It’s updated. One of the followers asked for a fortune.

He’s online right now.

Sam throws up an anonymous comment. “What is my fortune?”

It’s answered four minutes later:

> If you have something worth fighting for, then fight for it.

“Jesus, you little shit, I’m trying.”

He goes back to the message box.

Stops to look at his phone. Still no call back.

Yeah. Okay.

He types up another anonymous comment and hits send. “How about Tuesday? Like we used to?”

Two minutes later, there’s a new post when he refreshes. “Not sure what you mean anon?”

Goddamnit.

He types up one more message. “Answer your fucking phone.”

Sam hits send. Waits two minutes. And calls again.

This time, Chuck answers.

“Uh. Sam?”

“Hi. How about Tuesday?”

“Oh shit. Sam. Sam, look, I didn’t- how did you-”

“Or tonight? Please. Please, Chuck, I feel like shit tonight. Please help me salvage this day. I’m-- I’m determining with my deeds or whatever.”

Chuck doesn’t respond.

“Maybe not Chinese?” Sam says into the heavy silence. “Maybe- I don’t know. Anyplace. You can-- Chuck. You can go places with me.” It might take a while to convince him. Sam might still be jobhunting tomorrow. Next week. Next month.

But he suddenly really, really understands that the way he feels about Chuck isn’t gonna change. It’s never going to be the casual thing it was at the start. He’s wanted Tuesdays back for a while. He kinda wants more than that.

Chuck is still quiet before he says, “You know, I looked it up and I can’t be sure, but I don’t think ‘jianti’ actually means ‘love.’”

Sam shrugs. Listens to Chuck’s breath on the phone. “You wanna go ask one of the ladies at Noodle Shop?”

“Yeah.”

“With me? Tonight?”

“Yeah.”

“Chuck?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s not too late.”

“Jesus,” he sounds like he got the wind knocked out of him. “We don’t have to go to Noodle Shop every night,” he says into the quiet.

“Okay. You um. You wanna-”

“You could just come to my place.”

Sam grins. “You’re gonna order take-out aren’t you?”

Chuck finally laughs.

“I like your blog,” Sam adds.

“I like your everything. Come tell me how the interview went. I donno, pick up sandwiches or something?”

“Based on my interviewing prowess, you might not want to trust in my ability to think on my feet right now,” he admits.

“Okay. Delivery it is. Bring your documents. Your résumé and cover letters and everything. Let’s work on it together, okay?”

Sam nods like an idiot then remembers to say, “Yeah. Um. You sure about this?”

“Sam,” Chuck gives himself a minute. Takes a few deep breaths. “I’ll make tea and everything.”

He stands, scoops up his laptop and his keys. “I’m eight minutes away,” he says, like he always does.

“I’ll be waiting,” Chuck says, like he always does.


End file.
